


The Weather Outside is Frightful

by athena_crikey



Category: Ghost in the Shell
Genre: 2nd GIG, Gen, Mission-Fic, Refugee Sectors, Snow Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 21:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7008808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some time with Paz and Saito. A mission-fic. (SAC: 2nd GIG)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weather Outside is Frightful

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the majority of this several years ago, and at the time intended for it to be much longer. But I ran out of steam partway through, and recently decided to clean up what there is of it for posting.

The world is full of unspoken rules. Location, sex, occupation, situation, they all have their own silent codes. The average man in the street is following a handful of them without even realising it; the businessman you see getting on the train in the morning’s stifling under them; a Yakuza enforcer needs a whole goddamn diary to keep up with the tiny details that shift with each power play. I know; I used to be one.

Compared to those poor bastards, Section 9’s liberating. Apart from remembering the everyday courtesies (parking etiquette, minimum standards of decency, not lighting up in anyone’s face), there are only three rules: get the job done, don’t piss off the Major, and don’t die on the clock. 

So you’ll know when I say we damn near blew all three on the mission to Hokkaido just how piss poor it went.

  
***

It started with an outbreak of the ‘flu in the Kushiro refugee sector. Not unusual for winter in Hokkaido in a shanty-town packed ten to a filthy room. The cybernization rate up there’s less than 50% – the lowest rate of all five districts, to go along with the lowest employment. Now act surprised when I tell you they’ve got the lowest income, health and education stats, too. Back after the war some bureaucrat thought spacing out the refugee districts across the four islands would be a brilliant move – from a media perspective, he might have been right. The Kushiro camp’s in the middle of fucking nowhere, and that means negative press is nearly non-existent. No neighbours to piss off.

The influenza epidemic only registered on two of the nine great media sites, and even then only as a footnote. With the Individualist Eleven taking pot shots at the PM and plutonium growing legs and walking away, the Kushiro situation made it onto our radar, but no farther. At least not until the head of Medicine for the Greater Japanese Health Authority and his aide, sent in by Kayabuki to assess the situation and pacify the locals, went missing. Then it got ratcheted up real quick. 

The call for a priority two briefing came in in the early afternoon, a couple of hours after the news broke. Batou and Togusa synched in from offsite somewhere, busy chasing down tips on the Individualist Eleven; the rest of us showed up in person. Borma and Ishikawa were still finishing their lunch; the Major sat on the other couch, watching silently. Saito and I were standing – we’ve spent too much of our lives in the field to be comfortable sprawling for long. I’d just lit a cigarette, tucking the lighter away in my suit pocket. The Chief, as usual, cut right to the chase. 

“You’ve all heard that the Chief Medical Officer for the GJHA and another doctor have gone missing in Hokkaido, in or near Kushiro.” The pictures of the two men appeared on the screen, both in their early fifties with faces only a mother would love. One was running to fat with a thick moustache that did nothing to disguise it, heavy rolls of skin hanging below his eyes, chin and jowls. The other was a thin weasel of a man whose bad sandy dye-job might have been an attempt to distract from his narrow eyes and crooked teeth. Kurotani Masahiro and Abe Shinsuke, a pair of ugly bastards who were quite possibly already dead.

The Chief continued, ignoring the images. We’d all seen them before. “The Prime Minister just received an unsigned notice claiming responsibility for their disappearance. It appears to be from a group sympathetic to the refugees’ cause.”

A scanned image of the note replaced the photos, black marker on white paper. It was short and to the point:

_Two lives for two hundred. Maybe next time you’ll act sooner._

“ _So they’re dead_ ,” said Batou, voice slightly tinny over the connection. “ _You’ll never find the corpses in the refugee sector; they’ll be buried in a dozen holes by now._ ”

“Not necessarily. You may recall that until now the JSDF hasn’t been able to provide anything other than eyewitness testimony to support their claim that the two men left the camp – and their protection – unharmed.”

Ishikawa nodded. “Sure; they’re getting creamed by the media.”

The Chief nodded once, and then clicked past the note to show a security system log. “They’ve been able to find proof in one of their automatic back-up databanks. It appears that the two doctors were in fact logged as leaving the refugee camp. The main terminal’s memory was erased, but the hacker missed the back-up.”

The file scrolled down and highlighted the line of text showing the two docs’ ID cards being scanned at the gate as they exited. The time stamp was in the early afternoon of the day before yesterday.

“That time – it’s when they were scheduled to leave, according to the media.” The Major stopped the scroll and enlarged the date stamp.

“ _Then what – the note’s a cover-up to blame the refugees? Or just to buy time?_ ” asked Togusa.

“That’s not yet certain. While it’s possible that the crime is a personal vendetta against one or both of the missing men and the criminals are simply taking advantage of the fraught refugee situation to muddy the waters, it’s more likely that there is some political agenda here – although it’s unclear who is meant to benefit.”

“ _So what’re we supposed to do about it?_ ” growled Batou, uncomplicated as always.

“The Prime Minister does not feel she can ignore the note, however unsubstantiated the message. We are to find the missing men, and bring the criminals into custody. As there is the possibility that this may mean a covert action in the refugee sector, it is within our prerogative.”

“And since the JSDF lost them in their own backyard, no one wants to toss it to them,” concluded Ishikawa.

“Major, you, Batou, Saito and Paz will fly out this evening. Ishikawa, Borma and Togusa will stay here. Ishikawa will work the case backwards online, starting with the hack into the JSDF’s records. Borma and Togusa will investigate the two missing men to determine whether this may be somehow linked to them directly.”

  
***

Hokkaido’s always had trouble assimilating. Too remote, too cold, too new. Chalk it up to whatever suits you. Its wide streets and sprawling, squat buildings don’t fit in with typical Japanese architecture. So it’s not surprising that the Kushiro refugee district didn’t much match the look of the others either. But the feel – poverty, hunger, desperation – that was spot on.

Unlike Tokyo and Dejima, the buildings on the other side of the long chain-link fence splitting Kushiro in two were detached, rambling houses and short concrete block apartments. Little opportunity for cheap expansion or additions. Now, after years of hard use by crowded families in harsh conditions the walls were stained and cracked, streets crowded with junk and rubble. A heavy layer of snow should have covered over some of the barren wretchedness of the place, but somehow it only exacerbated it. The streets were brown with sludge, snowy roofs pocked with black ash from the fires that burned in most of the houses.

“Section 9, huh?” the colonel posted to the JSDF base on the edge of the camp was wearing his regulation winter coat – padded and fur-lined for northern expeditions. We were standing in what passed for winter gear in Niihama – bulky dark coats and gloves that were nowhere near heavy enough for the -35 weather. The colonel’s unimpressed gaze took it all in. 

“Our intention is to find the two missing doctors and return with them,” the Major scanned the small office, uninsulated wooden walls and a thin ceiling with a bland, expressionless face. She met the colonel’s eye and held it. 

“We’re perfectly capable of mounting a search operation,” retorted the colonel flatly, trying to stare her down. No military op would ever cede control without some amount of posturing; it was as predictable as Batou’s regular shipment of weight training equipment. 

“Regardless, we have our orders. This task has been allotted to us. Paz and Saito, work with the colonel to determine what happened to the two doctors according to the JSDF. Batou and I will search the refugee district.”

“Roger,” echoed Saito and I. The Major and Batou put up their hoods and stepped out of the tiny office. 

The colonel watched them go, then turned to us, looking bored already. “They left here at 13:25 hours; you can see the back-up log if you want.”

“Where were they going?” asked Saito, waving away the offer of checking the log. We had all seen it already. 

The colonel shrugged. “They had a flight scheduled for 14:30 at the Kushiro airport, but they’d just heard it had been cancelled. They mentioned something about driving to Kitami, hoping the weather would be better inland. We already sent helicopters to check their route; nothing.”

“ _Why wasn’t this in the briefing?_ ” Saito glanced at me, frowning.

“ _Maybe the brass thought it was the JSDF ass-covering._ ”

Saito sighed. “ _Maybe it is. But we’d better check it out._ ”

  
***

The satellite network was spotty at best. Coverage was fine in Kushiro with the base to cater to, and even Tsurui put out a signal. But every kilometre deeper into the mountains we went, the noisier the lines got. Then, around the fifty click mark, coverage cut out altogether. Enforced radio silence. Beside me Saito cursed, probably in the middle of uploading a report.

On the other side of the windshield the world was divided into two very clear layers: white snow shining blindingly in the headlights, and the pitch blackness beyond. It wasn’t actually snowing, but the wind was throwing it up against the windshield in waves that set the wipers going furiously. Under the snow the road was good enough, despite the unbroken layer of white showing how rarely it was used – or maybe how much it had snowed recently. Even the 4x4’s hard suspension wasn’t bucking too much. 

Without the ‘net to distract us, there was only the case to think about. A case that didn’t seem to be going anywhere, by any measure.

“D’you believe this story?” Saito was staring out at the snow like it might leap up and bite him in the ass. I shrugged.

“Hard to imagine two execs from Niihama out here on a highway with no lights in a snowstorm.” You couldn’t drive 100 metres on any highway within a day of Niihama without passing a myriad of light posts, speed cameras, and tollbooths. Here, there weren’t even any goddamn sign posts. “Still, idiots make idiotic decisions every day. We have no proof we’re dealing with anything else. They wouldn’t toss a genius out to deal with a crisis in the Kushiro camp, they’d toss out a scapegoat.”

“We’re assuming they left the camp at all,” said Saito.

“Wild goose chase? For our benefit?” The highway ran along the side of a hill, rising into a sheer wall on the left and falling into a dark dip to the right; the headlights weren’t strong enough to reach its bottom. There hadn’t been any turn-offs for kilometres, nowhere to call it quits without doing a 180. A good place to send someone you didn’t want to see again for a while. Or at all.

Saito glanced in the rear-view mirror; there was no one behind us. Hadn’t been for almost an hour. “If someone wanted to take us out, they’d have done it already.” 

I nodded. “They could be targeting the Major and Batou – without satellite coverage we’re out of the picture.”

Saito shook his head, more in frustration than disagreement. “This all feels fake. Like someone’s trailing their coat, looking to see who follows. We’ve exposed ourselves – they know who we are, they know where we’re going; they could have jumped us. Instead they just keep reeling us along. Why?”

“Waiting for the right time,” I suggested. “Or cold feet.” Only the truly committed, the truly ignorant, or the truly insane baited Section 9. 

“I think the whole damn thing’s a ruse,” he said, morosely. Then, shaking himself out of his gloom, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack and lighter. “Want one?”

I glanced over to accept the smoke, so I saw the shock on his face first. Maybe that split-second would have made a difference, maybe not. But by the time I swivelled, the truck was several meters closer to the black wall that had appeared out of nowhere in the headlights. 

The breaks didn’t squeal, not on the thick carpet of snow. The truck spun out without a sound as I wrenched the wheel to the left, skidding too smoothly on the tractionless road. 

There was no guardrail, just cats’ eyes mounted on steel posts. The truck slammed over one with a wrenching jolt and catapulted down the steep incline – the surface hidden under the snow was full of bumps and holes, and even strapped in I rattled around in the cab until my teeth rang in my goddamn skull. The one mercy was that the valley turned out to be shallow, despite the apparent bottomless appearance it had presented from the highway. The truck reached the end of the incline and skidded out onto the flat surface beyond before finally stopping. The engine gave the sickly cough of a starving motor, struggled for a second, and then died. 

It was only then that I realised I was holding the wheel so tightly my fingers were numb and my wrists aching. I let go, fingers spread wide and palms resting on the leather. My neck felt like it’d been wrung like a chicken’s, and the trip down the incline hadn’t done anything for my spine. Beside me, Saito unclenched his hands from the armrest and dash, glanced at me, then pulled his sidearm out and checked the chamber. I did the same, checking the mirrors for movement behind us.

Nothing. But in the dark, who could tell? Saito cracked open his door and we listened to the wind wailing in the distance. There were no crunching footprints, no voices or guns cocking. 

We sat there in silence for nearly a minute, waiting. But nothing materialised out of the dark Hokkaido winter but a few gusts of snow. All the heat leaked out of the truck, our breath suddenly visible and our skin whitening rapidly. 

“Did they think we’d total ourselves?” I found I was still buckled in and struggled to release the catch, adrenaline making my hand shake. 

“Maybe they thought we’d try to walk back. It must be damn near fifty clicks back to Kushiro, or on to Kitami. If it’s -35 out there, we might make it five before the expose kicked in.”

“Like hell we’re doing that; the dash said -40. I think the fuel line’s bought it, but the battery still works.” I cycled through the ignition settings and turned on the electrics to prove it. “The Major can pick us up in a few hours when we don’t check in.”

It was probably the goddamn cockiness that did us in. That, or the heaters turning on simultaneously. From outside there was a low crack, like the rapport of a distant rifle, and the truck rocked forward slightly. Saito looked over at me – for a moment, we both froze. Then we each threw open our doors and shot out of the truck. Under the knee-deep snow, my feet skidded on the hidden ice as I hurried away from the truck. There was another, longer cracking and the front of the truck jerked forwards, then started to sink.

Running through knee-deep snow isn’t a hell of a lot easier than running through knee-deep water, especially when there’s ice underneath. Luckily it wasn’t very far to the shore, some kind of rough, frozen ground that felt reassuringly hard and granulated under my boots. In the fading glow provided by the truck’s internal light, Saito crunched over to stand beside me and we watched the trunk sink into the hidden lake until the light cut out abruptly. 

“What now?” The cold was already apparent in Saito’s voice, and his coat rustled as he pulled up the hood against the wind. I did the same; with no fur edging or lining, the wind sliced right into it. The winter clothes were designed to keep you warm going from building to building, not for hours in the middle of fucking tundra. 

“You’re the one who said we’d only get five clicks if we had to walk,” I pointed out.

“If that. But we’re short on options. There’s no one to hail down, and the road’s completely exposed.”

No way we could make the potentially five or six hour wait on an open road exposed to the wind; we’d be popsicles by the time the cavalry showed up. There was only one choice, and we both knew it. “We find shelter, and wait for the Major.”

“Supplies?” There was more shuffling, presumably Saito going through his own pockets. I did the same, stomping my already-freezing feet to try to keep them warm.

“Sidearm, ammo, smokes, lighter, knife, first aid kit.” All the real survival gear – tarp, tent, blankets – had been in a bag in the back of the truck. 

“I’ve got that, plus a flashlight. But my gloves are crap.” He didn’t have to say anymore; my face was already going painfully numb. Holding a flashlight would freeze our fingers off in less than half an hour. 

“We take turns.”

There was a click, and the light came on. He shone it along the tracks left by the truck as it slalomed down the hill, and up towards the highway. From down here the rough hill was almost as steep as a wall, heading off into the distance. The space between it and the lake was completely barren as far as the eye could see, without even trees or shrubs to act as cover. 

I hunched my shoulders, shoving my hands deeper into the unlined pockets. “Fucking fantastic.”

“We go along the road. There should be some outcropping sooner or later.” He started walking, heading for the white wall. His hand was already shaking hard.

It doesn’t get cold in Niihama. Sure, everything feels colder with the humidity, and we might get a dusting of snow once or twice a year, but it’s not what you’d call real winter. I’ve done some time up in Aomori – some of the most boring surveillance work of my career – and it was break-the-ice-on-your-shaving-water-cold there. You went to bed cold, and you woke up cold, because the insulation was non-existent and the heating crapped out after about an hour. 

This wasn’t in the same ballpark. After walking for five minutes, my face had gone through burning and was totally numb. Breathing hurt like hell no matter how you did it – breathe through your nose and it dried out until the air cut like razors; breathe through your mouth and your throat and lungs froze. I’d never been somewhere so cold that hard exercise didn’t warm you up, but even hiking through the knee-high snow I felt frozen through. 

Saito switched the flashlight to his other hand after only a couple of minutes, then back again. I took it off him at that point; my fingers went numb almost as fast as my face had. As soon as I switched hands I realised the fundamental flaw in the plan: our gloves and pockets weren’t warm enough to defrost our hands. My right hand didn’t warm up one fucking bit tucked away out of the wind, and I knew Saito’s wouldn’t have either. 

He had predicted we wouldn’t get five kilometres; I was starting to think three might be unrealistic. 

“There. That shadow.” Like he’d been reading my line of thought, Saito stopped and pointed by jabbing out his elbow. There was a dark shadow in the hill leading up to the road. I turned the now-wildly-shaking flashlight at it; it looked like a narrow crevasse. We stomped over and found that it was a bit better than that. In the summer months it was probably just a shallow hollow in the rocky surface barely able to shelter a cat from the rain, but under several feet of snow it was a cave deep enough to fit two men. 

We slipped into it sideways to keep the entrance narrow and then beat down the snow inside to widen the protected area. Once we were in we shovelled the snow on the ground up to form a barrier, partially blocking off the entrance until we could sit on the ground and not feel the wind. 

It took both hands to turn off the flashlight, which was nine fingers more than a simple switch should require. I put it in my pocket; easier to find there than on the ground. Then I sat down, legs too numb to do anything other than sit stretched out in front of me, and hunched down as deeply as I could in my coat. 

It was too dark to see Saito, but I could hear him breathing – loud, shuddering breaths, like an asthmatic struggling to breathe. Not promising. I wasn’t holding up much better. Now that we were done walking, I cut most of the energy keeping my cybernetics ready to function and rerouted it to heating. It might keep my core from freezing, but it would be the end of my cybernetic limbs. 

“You know what they tell you to do if you end up freezing to death with someone,” I said, wishing I could stand the blast of cold long enough to pull my arms into the inside of my coat. 

“No. Did my time in the desert… There all you worry about… is running out of water… going crazy… and cannibalizing some bastard’s face.” Saito was more than 95% human; he had no option of cutting functions to preserve heat. His body would keep trying to heat all of itself, until it all froze.

“Does that happen a lot?”

“How d’you think Batou… ended up looking like that?” He sounded quiet, speaking into his hood. The whole world was silent, a deep soft silence Niihama could never match, muffled in the deep snow. It occurred to me briefly that if we died here they might not find us until spring, a pair of skeletons lying in the ditch. But no – someone would notice the skid marks and the giant hole in the lake. Unless it started snowing again…

“Always just thought he had poor taste.” I couldn’t even manage a snort.

We sat there in the silence for a while, just his hard breathing and my internal cybernetic warning metres going off. Must’ve been almost a half hour, just us and the wind outside. 

“Fucking snow,” said Saito, even quieter now. “This is why… I fucking went… to fucking Mexico.” He shifted slowly, weakly. 

“D’you think there are wolves here?” I asked, because fuck, I had to say something. He didn’t answer. “Saito: do you know what to do? In the cold?” I asked again, more quietly.

“Conserve heat,” he whispered.

“The cybernetics’ll keep me going for a while. Keep you going too.” I turned over, rolling my heavy legs until I knocked into him and we were lying side to side. My good arm wasn’t up to much, but the other had no function other than heating. I pulled my coat open, then his, and tucked them into each other clumsily, trying to trap them against our sides. I’m heavier than he is, but he didn’t complain, didn’t say anything as I dropped onto him like the worst fucking bolster in the world.

“Bet you wish the Major was here now,” I said, trying to shift and finding I couldn’t – my legs were dead, my good arm numb. I really was nothing but a bolster, one too goddamn pathetic to even keep his friend warm.

“No.” His breath was really rattling now, and I’d heard plenty of people breathe like that before but I didn’t want to think about it because none of them had lasted very long. “Never want… to die… in front of her.” 

“Thanks for the compliment,” I said, with as much irony as I could manage. There was no answer. “Saito? _Saito?_ ”

I couldn’t shake him. Couldn’t even shout. Just whispered, so quietly I could barely hear myself. “Saito?” 

I didn’t get an answer. 

I dropped my head, and tried to keep awake. 

It didn’t work.

  
***

There was a buzzing in my head, like a wasp bumping around in a jam jar. I tried to swat at it but nothing happened; there was nothing there to swat with. I tried to open my eyes, couldn’t. So I listened harder, until it resolved from white noise into words.

“ _…Respond…Saito… Paz… 0907…0908… Paz?...Saito?_ ”

I knew that voice. Knew it awake or asleep. 

“Major?” No, that was wrong, sounded wrong. “ _Major?_ ”

“ _Paz? Paz, where are you? What’s your situation?_ ”

“ _Major?_ ” It was the only thought in my head, the only one other than cold. “ _Major, I…_ ”

“ _Paz, what’s your situation?... Paz?_ ”

“ _…Cold._ ”

“ _Paz, where’s Saito? Can you give your location?_ ”

There was another sound now, a low rumbling, growing louder. “ _Hear something._ ” 

“ _Batou._ ” 

A sudden, loud wail cut through the air. “ _Paz, did you hear that? Did you hear it? Paz?_ ”

“ _Heard… it._ ” I managed to open my eyes; they stung, eyelids pulling apart slowly and reluctantly. I could hardly feel anything, and what I could only felt heavy and tinged with cold. I felt around slowly until I found something that moved, and clicked it. Light burned my eyes, bright and painful, and I turned away.

“ _There. Come on. Paz? Paz!_ ” And then louder, without the echo of a virtual feed, “Paz? Paz!” 

There was too much happening to understand; snow crunching under boots, voices shouting, hands pulling at me. I stared up into Batou’s face, twisted into an expression I hadn’t seen before. The Major was bending over Saito, his skin as white as the snow around him and his lips blue, his good eye frozen shut. 

After that, things got pretty blurry. 

Somehow or another Batou manhandled me up into the car, strapped me into the front seat like a braincaseless cyborg body. In the mirror I could see the Major pulling in Saito; he was lying limp with his eyes closed, face the colour of porcelain. Like a Noh mask, I found myself thinking as the heating began to melt my frozen skin receptors and my neural net lit up with fiery pain where the ice had destroyed skin and circuits. I cut my pain circuits and slumped back, waiting for the relief of unconsciousness. 

It wasn’t long in coming.

  
***

I was drowsy enough when I came to to know that they’d been pumping me with some serious pain meds.

I was alone in a small room holding just a bed and a little set of drawers on wheels doubtless full of medical crap. I was hooked up to about half a dozen lines; craning my head to see the monitor none of the readouts seemed too alarming.

Just as I was straightening the door opened with the swish of a sealed environment, and a nurse in full uniform stepped in. “How are you feeling?” she asked, with a pre-programmed smile. 

“Fine. Where’s my colleague?” I tried to sit up and found that a substantial portion of my skin receptors were shut off; without them I had only basic pressure sensitivity. It was a little disconcerting, like trying to pick up china cups with your hands wrapped in bubble-wrap. 

“He’s recovering in the non-cyborized unit. Frostbite and hypothermia had set in, but we have excellent care. I’m sure he will recover quickly.”

She clearly didn’t know, making her information useless. “ _Saito? You alright? Saito?_ ”

There was a long pause, anxiety roiling in my sensationless gut. Then, finally, “ _I’m in a fucking hospital bed._ ” He sounded weak, tired, even over the virtual link. 

“ _Better than a coffin._ ”

“ _Less restful._ ” He coughed once, then again. “ _Hell, here comes the nurse – I –_ ” the signal cut out. I frowned, and opened a new link. 

“ _Major?_ ”

There was a momentary pause, and then the line connected. “ _Finally awake? I didn’t bring you up here to have a snow day._ ”

“ _I’m sorry. There was some kind of temporary barrier placed on the road; we crashed into the lake trying to avoid it._ ”

“ _We know._ ” There was a pause. The nurse had moved over to the screen by my bedside and was fiddling with it; I ignored her. “ _We found your car in the bottom of the lake. It wasn’t the only one._ ”

“ _Kurotani and Abe?_ ”

“ _Doornails,_ ” she confirmed. “ _You did find them,_ ” she conceded, tone lightening slightly. “ _Togusa and Ishikawa turned up a link with the Niihama yakuza. It turned out that Kurotani had expensive tastes. And not much financial sense._ ”

“ _So what? This had nothing to do with the refugee crisis or the Individual Eleven or us? Just a fool who couldn’t pay his loans?_ ”

“ _We’re digging in to make sure that’s not just a cover story, but at the moment that’s the way it appears. It’s not so easy to get rid of prominent targets; they had to be clever about it. The enforcers hacked the phones to give false flight information, and there was an automated device set up by the highway with an inflatable barrier; it was programmed to launch for specific vehicle make and models. Guess whose yours matched?_ ”

I sighed, rubbing at my face. I felt nothing; the skin was fat and numb, like lips frozen by Novocain. “ _Then we were just an accident? Because they didn’t bother to clean up after themselves? Che._ ” 

“ _It would certainly have been a pointless death,_ ” agreed the Major. She sounded almost amused now. 

“ _How’s Saito?_ ”

“ _He’ll live. Touch and go for a while, but the hypothermia’s abated now. He’ll be well enough to come back to Niihama for further care tomorrow; you can bring him._ ” Saito, like the rest of us, is a piss-poor patient, and I’ve never been a patient man. This then, clearly, was some form of repentance. For both of us. At least she wasn’t sending the Tachikoma to pick us up. 

“ _Roger that._ ” I sighed and lay back as beside me, the nurse pulled out a drawer full of syringes and began unwrapping one from its plastic sheath. 

Repentance indeed.

END


End file.
